"It (the overtaking move) was so close," said the Spaniard, who
trails teammate Lewis Hamilton by two points in the title race
after the young Brit could finish only ninth.

"We touched each other two times, and I apologize to Massa
because I was so stressed when I finished a race we nearly
didn't finish," Alonso said. "I was not too happy at the end
because we touched, but I've nothing against him.

"I realized on the podium that this is motor racing. If I said
something to him, I apologize in front of everybody. I want to
enjoy the win and forget everything."

Massa was fuming with Alonso.

"I was really surprised when he came to say I did that (hit his
car) on purpose - I would never do something like that on
purpose," Massa said. "If he was a little bit unhappy, it's not
my problem. I just do my race and I follow the rules of the
sport. But if he has apologized, then that's fine. He knows he
was not right after the race."

The feud was a suitable aftermath to an incident-packed grand
prix in which Hamilton's championship lead has been slashed.

The rain came on the first lap where Hamilton had moved into
fourth place from 10th - his grid position following a 175 mph
smash in qualifying on Saturday.

A collision between the BMW Saubers of Nick Heidfeld and Robert
Kubica approaching the second corner led to Hamilton's McLaren
being clipped and puncturing a tire.

The 22-year-old dropped back down the order and was the last to
pit as the field changed to wet tires.

At one stage, seven drivers - Jenson Button, Adrian Sutil,
Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Anthony Davidson, Scott Speed and
Vitantonio Liuzzi - slid into the gravel at the first corner in
the space of 30 seconds.

The race was halted after four laps.

When the race restarted, Hamilton was at the rear of the field
after a crane had lifted him out of the gravel and back onto the
track, and he was first to change to dry tires.

That was a mistake. He crawled around the circuit, going off on
to the gravel at one point.

Despite a brave charge, and a number of retirements - including
Kimi Raikkonen - he could do no better than ninth.

"It was a crazy race, a new experience for me," Hamilton said.
"But it's just part of a steep learning curve."

Mark Webber completed the podium.

Hamilton said: "I hope this is my one bad weekend of the year. I
still feel quite positive going into the next race (Hungary in
two weeks), and I'm still leading the world championship, which
I find quite amusing considering it was such a bad weekend.

"I came here with flu, had one of the biggest crashes I've ever
had, got a puncture, the safety car came out, I went into the
gravel and it started to rain again. But if I'm being honest, I
had more fun today than I have had in the past. When you are
still leading the championship it shows how hard everyone else
is having to push to catch me up."

Despite being off the podium after his nine-race run, there was
no trace of bitterness from Hamilton.

"You can't have perfect race weekends race after race," said the
rookie. "I told you from day one that this was going to happen
eventually, that it would be inevitable that I would not finish
on the podium.

"So I was ready for it. You need to have these experiences, and
this was all a big experience for me, and it's still not over.
But I have learned 10 times as much today than in the last
race."